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Atlantic County Clerk Joe Giralo has reorganized the clerk’s office since his first day on the job in January. The historic Clerk’s Office entrance in Mays Landing is being used for the first time in decades, and historical records have been sorted and protected, he said.
Giralo gave a tour last month of some historic items displayed in an archive memorabilia nook at the Clerk’s Office. This is a bookbinding tool from the 1800s.
Atlantic County Clerk Joe Giralo talks about new programs he’s starting regarding elections, property issues, as well as archiving and cleaning up the historical archive of the Mays Landing building.
This old clock is among the finds Giralo has made in cleaning up the Clerk’s Office.
A framed display of the building’s original keys hangs in Giralo’s office.
Giralo shows off an old bank book.
MAYS LANDING — Atlantic County Clerk Joe Giralo has been preparing for the Nov. 8 general election almost since taking office in January, focused mainly on educating people about their rights and responsibilities as voters.
You may have seen Giralo in television commercials on a variety of cable networks, telling people how to remove their names from automatic vote-by-mail lists if they don’t want to vote that way going forward.
“A lot of people have been opting out, and a lot opting in. It works both ways,” Giralo said. “The message is getting out to people. We want you to vote. We don’t care if you vote by machine, early or by mail.”
But don’t stay on the mail-in list if you no longer want to vote that way, he said.
Vote-by-mail ballots cost more than $7 each to print and mail, Giralo said, and the vast majority are sent out but never returned.
Many who get them show up at their polling place on Election Day and then have to vote by provisional paper ballot.
MAYS LANDING — At 3 p.m. Monday, county clerks all over the state drew names of parties or c…
“That’s labor intensive,” Giralo said of counting provisional ballots.
The provisional ballots will only be counted once officials verify that no mail-in ballot came back for the same voter.
“In the general election, we will send about 30,000 out,” Giralo said of mail-in ballots. “On average less than 15% come back. That’s a lot of money that’s wasted.”
If only 4,500 come back, 25,500 with a value of $178,500 are thrown away, he said.
And with inflation, the cost is going up to almost $10 each this year, Giralo estimated.
Atlantic County Democratic Chairman Michael Suleiman called Giralo’s statements and commercials “fear mongering” after seeing the online version early Tuesday.
ATLANTIC CITY — Mayor Marty Small Sr. is calling a plan to move back to non-partisan electio…
“It is totally irresponsible for an elections official to perpetuate Trump’s ‘Big Lie’ and sully Vote by Mail under the guise of ‘saving taxpayer dollars,’” Suleiman said. “The real waste of taxpayer dollars is the tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars Mr. Giralo spent on a poorly-produced, confusing commercial that airs at 3 a.m. on TLC.”
Suleiman said the 2020 all-mail-in election showed that voting by mail is safe, convenient and easy, and the number of voters signing up to vote by mail grows each year.
“Joe wants to cut down on voting by mail, which is perceived as helping Democrats, yet he wants to waste taxpayer dollars on poorly utilized early voting centers in an attempt to help Republicans,” Suleiman said.
Giralo, a Republican, had to break the tie of the four-member Atlantic County Board of Elections in April when deciding where to place a seventh early voting site.
The board had split along party lines, with the two Democrats voting to end an early voting site in Buena Vista Township to create a new one in Pleasantville, and Republicans voting to keep the original six locations.
Both parties agreed to add a new site in Egg Harbor Township.
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“It is the goal of my office to ensure that voting routines are not disturbed,” Giralo said in a news release at the time, “and maintaining these six early voting locations (with the addition of Egg Harbor Township) will help to further that goal.”
Voters who are on the automatic vote-by-mail list and no longer want to vote by mail should opt out by Aug. 31 to be sure to be off it by the time the mail-in ballots are printed.
Links to forms to either opt out of or join the automatic vote-by-mail list are available on the clerk’s 2022 general election page at atlanticcountyclerk.org/elections-2/2022-general-election.
You also can stop in at the Atlantic County Clerk’s Office at 5901 Main St., Mays Landing.
The television commercials Giralo has been featured in are regularly run through Comcast for about 75% of the county, he said. The Hammonton area, where he lives, is in a different Comcast service wheel that also includes Camden County, so they aren’t running there.
“My kids say, ‘Dad, I went to put on a movie and I saw your commercial,’” Giralo said.
The Absecon man accused of entering a city Dollar General armed before being shot by police …
The clerk’s job is to prepare the ballots for the voting machines and the vote-by-mail and provisional paper ballots.
The office also provides one-time vote-by-mail ballots to those who come in and request them for themselves or another. But the proper paperwork must accompany a request to pick up one for someone else.
The completed ballots are then sent to the Board of Elections for counting.
A third office, the Superintendent of Elections, is also involved in elections.
That office keeps all the voter registration lists and updates them, and investigates all provisional ballots cast. (Provisional ballots are the paper ballots that must be used if someone gets to a polling site and their name is not on the voting rolls or the person had also been sent a vote-by-mail ballot. Only if the mail-in ballot was never returned will the provisional ballot be counted.)
HAMMONTON — Blueberry season is in full bloom in South Jersey.
It’s a complex system but a good one, Giralo said, with lots of checks and balances.
Since taking office in January, Giralo also has been making a lot of changes in the offices of the county clerk.
The historic entrance to the clerk’s office, which had been closed for decades, has reopened.
He also has revamped the office’s organization and security — particularly in the area that handles applications for and pick-up of mail-in ballots — revved up wedding services and organized historical archives.
On July 28 2022, in Mays Landing, Atlantic County Clerk Joe Giralo talks about new programs he's starting regarding elections, property issues, as well as archiving and cleaning up the historical archive of the building.
On July 28 2022, in Mays Landing, Atlantic County Clerk Joe Giralo talks about new programs he's starting regarding elections, property issues, as well as archiving and cleaning up the historical archive of the building. In Giralo's office, a framed display of the orginal building's keys hangs on his wall.
On July 28 2022, in Mays Landing, Atlantic County Clerk Joe Giralo talks about new programs he's starting regarding elections, property issues, as well as archiving and cleaning up the historical archive of the building. In Giralo's office, a framed display of the orginal building's keys hangs on his wall.
A framed display of the building’s original keys hangs in Giralo’s office.
On July 28 2022, in Mays Landing, Atlantic County Clerk Joe Giralo talks about new programs he's starting regarding elections, property issues, as well as archiving and cleaning up the historical archive of the building.
On July 28 2022, in Mays Landing, Atlantic County Clerk Joe Giralo talks about new programs he's starting regarding elections, property issues, as well as archiving and cleaning up the historical archive of the building. One of the examples of the cleaning up of the office space is a repurposed meeting room, that now accommodates a training and zoom monitor.
On July 28 2022, in Mays Landing, Atlantic County Clerk Joe Giralo talks about new programs he's starting regarding elections, property issues, as well as archiving and cleaning up the historical archive of the building. When the weather is less than ideal, marriages can be conducted inside the office.
On July 28 2022, in Mays Landing, Atlantic County Clerk Joe Giralo talks about new programs he's starting regarding elections, property issues, as well as archiving and cleaning up the historical archive of the building. At an archive memorabilia nook, Giralo lights up when he talks about the storied history of the Clerk's office.
On July 28 2022, in Mays Landing, Atlantic County Clerk Joe Giralo talks about new programs he's starting regarding elections, property issues, as well as archiving and cleaning up the historical archive of the building. At an archive memorabilia nook, Giralo lights up when he talks about the storied history of the Clerk's office.
On July 28 2022, in Mays Landing, Atlantic County Clerk Joe Giralo talks about new programs he's starting regarding elections, property issues, as well as archiving and cleaning up the historical archive of the building. At an archive memorabilia nook, Giralo lights up when he talks about the storied history of the Clerk's office.
On July 28 2022, in Mays Landing, Atlantic County Clerk Joe Giralo talks about new programs he's starting regarding elections, property issues, as well as archiving and cleaning up the historical archive of the building. At an archive memorabilia nook, Giralo talks about a County time piece.
On July 28 2022, in Mays Landing, Atlantic County Clerk Joe Giralo talks about new programs he's starting regarding elections, property issues, as well as archiving and cleaning up the historical archive of the building. At an archive memorabilia nook, Giralo talks about a 1929 Voting Ledger.
On July 28 2022, in Mays Landing, Atlantic County Clerk Joe Giralo talks about new programs he's starting regarding elections, property issues, as well as archiving and cleaning up the historical archive of the building. At an archive memorabilia nook, Giralo talks about a 1929 Voting Ledger.
On July 28 2022, in Mays Landing, Atlantic County Clerk Joe Giralo talks about new programs he's starting regarding elections, property issues, as well as archiving and cleaning up the historical archive of the building. At an archive memorabilia nook, Giralo talks about an 1838 Jury Box.
Giralo shows off an old bank book.
On July 28 2022, in Mays Landing, Atlantic County Clerk Joe Giralo talks about new programs he's starting regarding elections, property issues, as well as archiving and cleaning up the historical archive of the building. At an archive memorabilia nook, Giralo talks about a interesting relic from the past, a 1941 Dixie Cup dispenser.
This old clock is among the finds Giralo has made in cleaning up the Clerk’s Office.
Giralo gave a tour last month of some historic items displayed in an archive memorabilia nook at the Clerk’s Office. This is a bookbinding tool from the 1800s.
On July 28 2022, in Mays Landing, Atlantic County Clerk Joe Giralo stands in the new Election Office, which he has revamped to increase security of ballots held there.
On July 28 2022, in Mays Landing, Atlantic County Clerk Joe Giralo talks about new programs he's starting regarding elections, property issues, as well as archiving and cleaning up the historical archive of the building. In the original buildings basement, a labor of love is still underway with archiving old ledgers.
Atlantic County Clerk Joe Giralo talks about new programs he’s starting regarding elections, property issues, as well as archiving and cleaning up the historical archive of the Mays Landing building.
On July 28 2022, in Mays Landing, Atlantic County Clerk Joe Giralo talks about new programs he's starting regarding elections, property issues, as well as archiving and cleaning up the historical archive of the building. In the original buildings basement, a labor of love is still underway with archiving old ledgers.
On July 28 2022, in Mays Landing, Atlantic County Clerk Joe Giralo talks about new programs he's starting regarding elections, property issues, as well as archiving and cleaning up the historical archive of the building. In the original buildings basement, a labor of love is still underway with archiving old ledgers.
On July 28 2022, in Mays Landing, Atlantic County Clerk Joe Giralo talks about new programs he's starting regarding elections, property issues, as well as archiving and cleaning up the historical archive of the building. The old entrance to the Clerk's office is now blocked off due to the Court's entrance being active.
On July 28 2022, in Mays Landing, Atlantic County Clerk Joe Giralo pulls the original 1906 metal sliding doors out of the sleeve at the entrance to the Clerk's office. The entrance is now the entry to the Clerk's Office again after decades of disuse.
On July 28 2022, in Mays Landing, Atlantic County Clerk Joe Giralo talks about new programs he's starting regarding elections, property issues, as well as archiving and cleaning up the historical archive of the building. Giralo outside of the entrance to the Clerk's office.
Atlantic County Clerk Joe Giralo has reorganized the clerk’s office since his first day on the job in January. The historic Clerk’s Office entrance in Mays Landing is being used for the first time in decades, and historical records have been sorted and protected, he said.
On July 28 2022, in Mays Landing, Atlantic County Clerk Joe Giralo conducts weddings at a pergola adjacent to the historic County Courthouse. A fountain outside, surrounded by rose bushes, is also used for marriage ceremonies, weather permitting.
On July 28 2022, in Mays Landing, Atlantic County Clerk Joe Giralo talks about new programs he's starting regarding elections, property issues, as well as archiving and cleaning up the historical archive of the building.
Aug. 15: 3 p.m., county clerks drawing for ballot position
Sept. 24: county clerks must start mailing vote-by-mail ballots
Oct. 18: voter registration deadline for general election
Oct. 26: mailing of sample ballots
Oct 29 to Nov. 6: early voting period
Nov. 1: deadline to apply by mail for vote-by-mail ballot
Nov. 7: deadline to apply in person for vote-by-mail ballot (must be postmarked by 8 p.m. Nov. 8 to be counted, or returned by 8 p.m. Nov. 8 to an official ballot drop box for pickup by county)
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In my first job after college got paid to read the New York Times and summarize articles for an early online data base. First reporting job was with The Daily Record in Parsippany. I have also worked in nonprofits, and have been with The Press since 1990.
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MAYS LANDING — Atlantic County Clerk Joe Giralo said Thursday morning the early voting sites for the 2022 primary and general elections will r…
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Atlantic County Clerk Joe Giralo has reorganized the clerk’s office since his first day on the job in January. The historic Clerk’s Office entrance in Mays Landing is being used for the first time in decades, and historical records have been sorted and protected, he said.
Giralo gave a tour last month of some historic items displayed in an archive memorabilia nook at the Clerk’s Office. This is a bookbinding tool from the 1800s.
Atlantic County Clerk Joe Giralo talks about new programs he’s starting regarding elections, property issues, as well as archiving and cleaning up the historical archive of the Mays Landing building.
This old clock is among the finds Giralo has made in cleaning up the Clerk’s Office.
A framed display of the building’s original keys hangs in Giralo’s office.
Giralo shows off an old bank book.
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